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Neeraj Jha named head of sports business – India and South Asia at Warner Bros. Discovery
From Eurosport to WBD, Jha charts a new course for sports in India and South Asia
GURUGRAM: Neeraj Jha has been appointed head of sports business for India and South Asia at Warner Bros. Discovery, marking an exciting new chapter in a career that has long been at the crossroads of sports, media, and live entertainment.
Jha’s journey in the world of broadcast and sports media spans over two decades, from producing live shows at Ten Sports to shaping content strategy at Zee, IMG, and Eurosport. Most recently, he served as director of content, programming and acquisition at Warner Bros. Discovery, where he drove year-on-year Ebitda growth and steered the network’s programming, satellite planning, and on-air promotions. His expertise ranges from content acquisition and marketing to broadcast operations and strategic partnerships.
Colleagues praise Jha for thinking outside the box. “When constraints are immense, he delivers results no matter what,” one senior executive remarked, highlighting his knack for sourcing compelling content and intellectual property for the South Asian market.
Beyond the boardroom, Jha co-founded SEEtalks, a live event series designed to inspire audiences with compelling stories, reflecting his passion for storytelling and community engagement.
From launching daily sports news shows to localising global content like WWE Wrestling for Indian audiences, Jha’s career has been a blend of creativity and operational excellence. As he steps into this new role, the sports broadcasting landscape in India and South Asia is set for a fresh and dynamic chapter.
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Samsung certifies 1,000 Maharashtra students in AI and coding
The South Korean electronics giant marks its first large-scale skilling push in the state, with women making up nearly half the national programme’s enrolment
PUNE: Samsung has put 1,000 students in Maharashtra through a certified training programme in artificial intelligence and coding, the largest such drive the South Korean electronics company has run in the state and a signal that corporate India’s skilling ambitions are moving well beyond the boardroom brochure.
The certifications were awarded under Samsung Innovation Campus (SIC), the company’s flagship corporate social responsibility programme, which launched in India in 2022 with the stated aim of democratising access to future-technology education. The 1,000 graduates were drawn from four institutions: 127 from Savitribai Phule Pune University, 373 from Pimpri Chinchwad University, 250 from D.Y. Patil University’s Ramrao Adik Institute of Technology and 250 from Anjuman-I-Islam’s Kalsekar Technical Campus. All completed training in either AI or coding and programming, the two disciplines Samsung has identified as the critical pillars of the digital economy.
The programme does not stop at technical training. Soft-skills development and career-readiness modules are baked into the curriculum, a deliberate attempt to close the gap between what universities teach and what employers actually want.
“India’s digital growth story will ultimately be shaped by the quality of its talent pipeline,” said Shubham Mukherjee, head of CSR and corporate communications at Samsung Southwest Asia. “As technologies like AI move from the periphery to the core of industries, skilling must evolve from basic training to building real-world capability. This milestone in Maharashtra reflects how industry and academia can come together to create a future-ready workforce that is both globally competitive and locally relevant.”
The Maharashtra drive sits within a rapidly scaling national effort. Samsung Innovation Campus trained 20,000 young people across India in 2025, hitting its stated target for the year. Women account for 48 per cent of national enrolments, a figure the company cites as evidence of its push for an inclusive technology ecosystem. The programme is implemented in partnership with the Electronics Sector Skills Council of India and the Telecom Sector Skill Council.
Samsung, which is marking 30 years in India this year, runs SIC alongside two other initiatives, Samsung Solve for Tomorrow and Samsung DOST, as part of a broader effort to build what it calls a generation of innovators with both the technical depth and the problem-solving mindset to thrive in a fast-moving digital world.
A thousand certified students is a tidy headline. Whether they find jobs that match their new skills is the harder question, and the one that will ultimately determine whether corporate skilling programmes like this one are genuine pipelines or well-photographed gestures.
